Bite-Sized
by DeejayMil
Summary: They all might have grown up, but none of them ever outgrew their love of stories. Even if some of them hid that love under a stern frown and a worldly collection of ties. And they all had stories to tell. [Drabble Collection]
1. May 1st: Escapism

**Maybe May**

 **Pint-Sized Prompts are back once more! Just the usual thing this month, filling the prompts with a random assortment of things depending on what comes up. I can't really muster the energy to do much more right now, everything is just... bleh.**

 **Each prompt this month is a short phrase and an image, both supplied (unless you're on ffnet, sorry guys!)! Please let me know if you enjoy them :) Feedback makes the glum Deejay less glum. Less glum Deejay is a more productive Deejay! Or something like that.**

 **May 1** **st** **: Escapism**

 **.**

May 1st: **Never** \- **200** \- _We're never going to stop._

 **.**

When Sean Hotchner was born, Aaron was ten years old. His mother was an alcoholic. His father wasn't kind.

His mother asked Aaron: "Why do you spend so much time down by the quarry?"

But Aaron didn't answer. He kept going to the quarry, except he wasn't by himself. He had his friends. They weren't real, he knew that. Not yet.

He suspected they might be one day though.

There was the small boy in the wizard's hat, doing tricks with poker chips and cards. Always quiet, never mean. The girl with the black hair and the knife-sharp eyes. Aaron didn't like to talk, so sometimes he thought of someone who'd talk for him. Maybe with blonde hair and the kindest smile. Maybe wearing bright colours and a wicked grin.

Mostly he was lonely, so he thought of a best friend. And a best friend would have a best friend name. He took a whole day to imagine up, all the little details, until Aaron opened his eyes and there he was waiting by the tire stack.

"Hi, Dave," Aaron said. "Know any card tricks?

Dave didn't answer, they never did.

But one day they would.

And he was patient.


	2. May 2nd: Agent Down

**May 2** **nd** **: Agent Down**

 **.**

May 2nd: **Boom** \- **100** \- The color of boom.

 **.**

White flickered on black. Emily staggered up from the dirt, waiting for the boom of the lightning. Waiting for the whipcord thunder- _crack_ and blaze of light.

The light came. The _booom_ didn't.

Reid stood in front of her, outlined against the window. Skinny-sharp, and Emily blinked red from her eyes and shook herself sensible again. His mouth moving frantically, it took a moment for it to resolve into words.

"—explosive detonation. Agent down—"

Another white flicker; this time she heard the _boom_. And smelled the smoke.

"I'm okay," she reassured him, and took the hand he offered her.


	3. May 3rd: RevengeBooking

**May 3** **rd** **: RevengeBooking**

 **.**

May 3rd: **Mess** \- **200** \- The mess we made.

 **.**

 **FACE KILLER CAUGHT**

 **Elite FBI Unit Apprehend Murderous Villain**

Penelope Garcia stared at the headline on her Facebook page, a bubble of pride bursting deep in her chest. Splayed across the screen was her wonderful, fantastic, _tremendous_ team, standing pretty side-by-side at the press release announcing the sicko of the week's capture. _Fuck yeah, BAU_! she thought proudly. Beneath the headline, comments from Susie said **yeah this is fantastic! Hope that guy rots!** and another from Artie Magor said **wow theyre all so pretty does the FBI only models or something these days. But good job them! world is safer because of them** ** _:fire emote: :thumbs up emote: :laugh emote:_**

And then she did something utterly dumb.

She clicked _see more_ and kept reading comments.

Hannah Barbaros: **y r there so mny womyn on that team. Dsnt tht put the men in dnger** ** _:thumbs down emote: :lipstick emote:_**

David Kelly: **government dogs. Y don't they stop posing and start admitting their corruption**

Gia Davos: **id like to climb that skinny one like a tree** ** _:cat emote: :eggplant: emote: :water droplet emote:_**

Garcia blinked. Frowned.

Pulled her keyboard closer and got to work.

 _No one_ talked shit about her team. **Ever.**


	4. May 4th: Thinkin' of a Happy Place

**May 4** **th** **: Thinkin' of a Happy Place**

 **.**

May 4th: **Peace** \- **100** \- Peace in chaos.

 **.**

 _Come to Henry's birthday party,_ JJ had said.

 _It will be fun,_ JJ had said.

Emily breathed in deeply. Around her, food was flying. Children were flying. There was screaming. Mostly children. Some of it was Spencer, who appeared to be covered in children. Face-painted children. Food-covered children. There was cake in his hair. He appeared to be having tremendous fun.

Emily breathed in deeply, closed her eyes, and smiled as she went to her happy place.

"Whacta thinkin' 'bout?" one child asked, touching Emily with cakey fingers.

"Serial killers," Emily said wistfully, and sighed.

"Oh," said the kid. "Cool."


	5. May 5th: Do You Wanna…?

**May 5** **th** **: Do You Wanna…?**

 **.**

May 5th: **Freeze** \- **400** \- I wish I could freeze this moment.

 **.**

Reid was, to put it politely, absolutely fucking wankered. And Emily had been instructed—by no less than four of her only slightly less inebriated friends—to take him home. On foot, they'd said, since he only lived around the corner.

On foot, they'd said, despite the ankle-deep snow and the freezing night and her own quiet belief that walking a very drunk Reid home would be like herding cats through a mouse factory. Filled with lasers. And catnip.

She was right.

She was also wrong.

She'd never met a cat who could sing the entire Frozen soundtrack, after all. Badly.

While twirling.

"Let it go, let it goooooo," he wailed, slipping on a patch of ice and going down for the second time. She sighed, dragging him out of the snow. He beamed at her with his arm around her waist, snow in his hair and his gloves damp. She stooped to rescue his bobble hat and plunked that on his head. "Can't hold it back anymore!"

"Who let you watch that movie," she grumbled, digging her boots into the snow as he tried to force her to dance with him on the frozen street. He was pink-flushed and silly. She refused to admit she was having fun.

"Henry," he said proudly, of course. "We finish each others—" He paused. Looked hopeful.

"No," she said. He pouted. "No," she said again.

He stuck his tongue out to catch a snowflake and almost went tits up again, coat sleeves flapping. And then pouted some more.

She closed her eyes and huffed. "Fine," she grumbled, checking to make sure no one was watching. Or video taping. Especially _Rossi._ "But _only_ if we go straight home after.

He nodded eagerly, bobble hat dancing about.

"Sandwiches…"

"That's what I was gonna say!" he yelled. A dog began to howl nearby. Emily hauled him along the street, face red. He stopped her, his hand on her elbow and his face deadly seriously.

"Wait, Em, I need…" he paused, and swallowed hard. She froze. Oh no. Oh no, don't do this. Not now. Not _now_. Last thing she needed was a complication— "I need to ask you something."

She closed her eyes and waited, heart sinking. Oh, there was no good outcome to this…

He leaned in close. His lips touched her ear. And he whispered, "Do… do you want to build a snowman?"


	6. May 6th: Textual Intentions

**May 6** **th** **: Textual Intentions**

 **.**

May 6th: **BFF** \- **100** \- So happy together.

 **.**

 **18:54**

 **MORGAN: are you Hotch's secret Santa this year? Also hurry up**

 **REID: That question is entirely against the spirit of Secret Santa, Morgan.**

 **MORGAN: so you didn't buy him a purple apron with KISS THE BOSS on it?**

 **REID:…** **No I did not.**

 **REID:…** **His Secret Santa is Rossi.**

 **.**

 **02:32**

 **MORGAN: WHERU**

 **REID: I don't know!? I got lost IN rossi's REALLY BIG HOUSE WHY IS IT SO BIG. Eily is here we're outside?**

 **MORGAN: LIGHTWEIGHT LOL**

 **MORGAN: …WHERE IS HOTCH**

 **REID: Very drunk. In the apron.**

 **REID:…** **In Rossi's bed.**

 **MORGAN: ….Were's rossi?**

 **REID: Hang on Emily fell down a pothole**

 **MORGAN: Reid where's Rossi**

 **MORGAN: Reid?**

 **MORGAN: REID.**

 **MORGAN: Goddamnit.**


	7. May 7th: A Scratch in the Night

**May 7** **th** **: A Scratch in the Night**

 **.**

May 7th: **Fear** \- **200** \- You made me realize my deepest fear.

 **.**

It had taken months of mandated therapy for anyone at the Bureau to be comfortable sending him back out into the field after Scratch. Months of sitting at a carefully arranged desk with just the _right_ balance between professional and approachable, talking about what Lewis had made him see.

There were things he talked about openly, knowing that they were creating the narrative he aspired to. Lewis's laugh as he'd shot the team. The heavy sound of Reid's body sliding down the door. JJ's scream. The fear, the horror, the desperation. The guilt.

There were things he didn't talk about, knowing they'd earn him a black mark on his file and a 'further evaluation recommended'.

The stink of blood that he still woke in the night to. The way his dreams were _still_ haunted by a looming claw-handed figure, wavering in the mist. The sound of bone splintering open under the force of a hollow point bullet.

Reliving their murders night after night after night and then facing them in the morning with a smile and a mug of coffee.

All this was why, when he was given the option, he ran.

He left.

But he never escaped the dreams.


	8. May 8th: I Dream of You

**May 8** **th** **: I Dream of You**

 **.**

May 8th: **Silence** \- **100** \- Dancing in the silence.

 **.**

He dreamed of an alien world and the whisper of rock under his bare feet. Flesh on stone in a rhythmic, discordant pattern. He dreamed of dancing under a moonlit sun suspended in a sky made of darkness itself. He dreamed of being afraid of the silence.

But he didn't dream of being alone.

He dreamed of a weight in his arms, slight and realized, and warm breath on his skin. He dreamed of a kiss.

He woke on the jet with Emily looking at him.

"You were dreaming," she said. "What of?"

"The ghost of a memory," Spencer replied.


	9. May 9th: Smooshes

**May 9** **th** **: Smooshes**

 **.**

May 9th: **Ever** \- **200** \- Will I ever be free?

 **.**

"Emily," Morgan whispered.

"Gnurk," replied Emily. Fast asleep, mouth open, drooling slightly, hair in face.

"You look pretty," he told her cheekily, because she was _on top of him_.

Well.

Not just her.

"Pretty Boy," Morgan tried, wiggling up. Reid was curled up on Morgan like a lanky kitten in corduroy, his knees tucked to his chest, his head pillowed on one crooked arm, and his face buried in Morgan's lap. Also drooling, if the damp patch on Morgan's thigh was any indication. Emily was draped overtop of them both; the possessive slinky cat to Reid's scruffy kitten with her arms folded around the slimmer man in an aggressive hug. "Pretty Boy, I gotta piss."

"Momnrgh…" Reid mumbled happily into his leg, shifting up as though he was going to sit up and only succeeding in rolling over and having Emily flop completely down on top. He blinked, almost awake, hazily staring at the woman cuddled on his chest.

And then he smiled, stupidly and wistfully, touched his thumb against Emily's mouth, and dropped straight back to sleep, head tilted back on Morgan's chest.

Morgan sighed and accepted his fate, getting out his phone.

He might as well take pictures.


	10. May 10th: Snoopadoo the Pomeranian

**May 10** **th** **: Snoopadoo the Pomeranian**

 **.**

May 10th: **Doggy Bag** \- **100** \- Go on, get it, go.

 **.**

They'd found the dog huddled underneath the tire of Hotch's car, peering out at Hotch and Jack as they stared down at it. The dog refused to walk. It refused to be carried. In the end, they crammed it into a Happy Birthday gift-bag—it weighed about as much as a sneeze on a windy day—and drove to 'Uncle Morgan's, who would undoubtedly be delighted by his new gift.

Morgan was _not_ delighted by his new gift. Hotch was forced to glare at him.

Fortunately, and strangely, Rossi _was_. And that was how Snoopadoo the Pomeranian joined the family.


	11. May 11th: Camping Misadventures

**May 11** **th** **: Camping Misadventures**

 **.**

May 11th: **Seen** \- **200** \- I saw it once, now I hate it.

 **.**

"Come on, Reid. We're seeing _nature_!" Morgan did a weird little twirl, arms thrown out, taking in the whole of the dim and dark green woods around them. Reid looked around. Morgan looked _entranced_ by their surroundings. All Reid could see was trees, trees, more trees, dirt, some undoubtedly itchy ivy… "Look around! Take it in!"

Reid scowled, adjusting the straps of the heavy bag he was carrying. Camping sucked. Hiking sucked. He couldn't _believe_ he'd agreed to this.

"I've seen it," he muttered, slouching past his friend and hurrying as fast as his weary and muddy legs would take him to the campsite. "I don't need to see it again. It's _awful._ "

"You're awful," Morgan retorted, still grinning. "You'll see. By tonight, you'll be a convert to the great outdoors."

That night it rained. Poured. _Bucketed._

All night.

Reid rolled against the side of the tent and water oozed in from where he was disrupting the surface tension of the canvas. Soggy and sore, he walked outside to be promptly attacked by mosquitoes.

"Never again," he whispered miserably, slinking back to the camp and falling into a hole filled with mud and the, now proven itchy, ivy. " _Never again."_


	12. May 12th: On a Whim

**May 12** **th** **: On a Whim**

 **.**

May 12th: **Wait** \- **100** \- If only I could wait.

 **.**

The budget wouldn't allow them to use the jet just to fly the two of them to Ohio, so they were driving. Emily was beginning to think that she'd be happy if she never saw another ear of corn again, even as she gratefully gave up the driver's seat to the refreshed and bright-eyed Spencer.

"When we get home, we should go out somewhere," she said on a whim, thumping her head back into the seat.

Spencer flushed. "I'd like that," he murmured.

Emily looked back at the corn so he couldn't see her smiling, wishing this drive was over…


	13. May 13th: A Woo in the Night

**May 13** **th** **: A Woo in the Night**

 **.**

May 13th: **Stand** \- **300** \- I'm just going to stand right here.

 **.**

"I had a bad dream." He shrunk back a little as he said it. Uncle Spence looked tired and grumpy and had been quiet all night.

Plus, this was _embarrassing_.

"Did you, buddy?" Uncle Spence asked, turning in his chair to peer at Henry. "Aw, come here, Henry. Don't be ashamed if you cried."

"Like a baby," Henry muttered, looking down with his face all red and hot as Uncle Spence walked over to him.

"I have bad dreams too, sometimes," said Uncle Spence, and rubbed Henry's shoulder. "Come on. We'll get you some clean PJs and you can sleep in the guest bed with me, okay?"

Uncle Spence stripped Henry's bed, he huddled in the guest bedroom and stared out the window. The window was a little bit open, and something went _woowwoooo_ outside. Henry whimpered. It sounded _just_ like the monster in his dream, the one that opened its mouth and swallowed everyone he loved right up.

"It's an owl," said Uncle Spence, coming into the room and closing the window. "Nothing to worry about."

"It was in my dream," said Henry, who didn't totally believe him.

"Did you know that the Lenni-Lenape people of southern New Jersey had a belief that if you dreamed of an owl, that owl would become your protector?" Uncle Spence said after a moment. "I wouldn't be scared, Henry. That means now you've got a protector when you're awake and asleep." And he smiled as he said it, sliding into the bed and dimming the light—but not turning it off.

"Oh," said Henry, and thought about that for a while. By the time he'd stopped thinking about it, he was asleep again.

 _Woowwooo_ said the owl in his dreams. Henry followed the noise. He trusted it.

Uncle Spence was _never_ wrong.


	14. May 14th: There Was an Explosion

**May 14** **th** **: There Was an Explosion**

 **.**

May 14th: **Sky** \- **150** \- The sound of the sky on fire.

 **.**

There was an explosion, and he was in it.

Such a small sentence. To someone unversed in the English language; an unimportant sentence. In that sentence, they wouldn't see the plumes of smoke curling and nuzzling against the sides of the city walls he stared upwards at, like cats begging for attention from a variable master. They wouldn't smell the smoke, the memory of burning. They wouldn't close their eyes and imagine the pain of shrapnel, the tumbling flight through the air, the gravel tearing skin from bone as he hit the ground. They wouldn't think of Kate's scream or wondering if his son was now an orphan.

They wouldn't know what the sky sounded like as it burned.

Aaron Hotchner stared up at a sky on fire and heard nothing; he wasn't dead, but he may have well have been.

There was an explosion, and he was in it.


	15. May 15th: If Only I Could Dance…

**May 15** **th** **: If Only I Could Dance…**

 **.**

May 15th: **Perfect** \- **200** \- That's how it should be.

 **.**

He was used to the dreams. Always alien, always whimsical. Almost always alone. Sometimes he was walking, endlessly through broken landscapes. Sometimes he walked through a gallery of the people he'd failed; rows and rows of victims staring sadly at him with accusingly dead eyes.

Sometimes, he danced.

And in those dreams, the oddest of all, he was always so sure that he _could_ dance, despite being so sure that in reality he couldn't.

The dreams could be sad and the dreams could be frightening and sometimes, just sometimes, the dreams could be utterly, painfully perfect. He hated those the most.

Waking up from those was always unpleasant.

This was different. The meadow stretched out in front of him, white and yellow and green and orange and every shade of sunset.

"You promised a date, I didn't think you meant something _this_ …" Emily began, stepping out beside him dressed far too nicely for this place. "Just, this."

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I thought we could…"

She took his hand, cool in the warmth of the evening. "No. It's perfect, Spence. Just perfect."

This was different.

This was real.

And he was sure that—if she asked him—he could dance.


	16. May 16th: BUNNY

**May 16** **th** **: BUNNY.**

 **.**

May 16th: **Inside** \- **100** \- Can you feel it?

 **.**

Hotch stared down at the carved wolf on the palm of his hand. "Well, it's cute," he said, tucking it into his pocket.

"What did she say they were again?" Emily asked, examining her own little slinky thing, whatever it was. "Uh… us?"

"Physical manifestations of our internal spirits," Reid added happily. "Look, Emily, ours are both otters!"

"Next time Garcia picks where we're going for dinner, I'm staying home." Rossi wasn't as cranky as he seemed, secretly pleased with his goat.

Morgan frowned. "I dunno. I don't really feel like a…"

"Bunny!" squeaked Garcia happily. "Look at your tail!"


	17. May 17th: He's Trying, Okay?

**May 17** **th** **: He's Trying, Okay?**

 **.**

May 17th: **Smile** \- **200** \- Even when you get it wrong, I smile.

 **.**

When Spencer proposed, he did it with a candy ring.

On their wedding day, he presented her with a bunny he'd cheekily named JJ.

On their first wedding anniversary, she received a hamster to replace the recently deceased JJ.

One year later, they sold the hutch and he gave her a book of moths. She was grateful, if a little confused.

Third was another book of moths.

On the fourth, she headed him off and bought concert tickets for them both. They came home to a lemon tree on the front porch with a bow around one juvenile branch. He assured her she'd be able to keep _this_ gift alive.

She couldn't.

She woke on the fifth to silence. Nervous glances around the house showed no scarily wrapped gifts, no grinning Spencer, no kind-hearted attempts at bestowing his boundless and endlessly energetic love upon her… she was suspicious.

She found him in the kitchen, frowning down at a piece of toast.

"Morning," she said, and kissed him firmly on his pertly scrunched nose. "Forget something?"

"Did you?" he asked, and shot her an eerie look. She blinked. "Please be gentler with this gift than the last, perhaps?"

And he handed her a box. Within the box, as she cautiously opened it, was another box.

Within that box, was probably the oddest gift ever. And then she remembered what she'd forgotten.

"Oh fuck," she said. _"Oh fuck_."

Eight months later, they welcomed Rowan into the world. "Why Rowan?" Rossi had asked, cuddling their son close and tickling his nose.

"Fifth anniversary gift is traditionally wood," Spencer responded, and winked.

Fifth was always her favourite.


	18. May 18th: Christmas Spirits

**May 18** **th** **: Christmas Spirits**

 **.**

May 18th: **Everyone** \- **100** \- Everyone. Tonight.

 **.**

People walked past them without a glance, shrouded by the night and the silver-white glare of the candles they held in steady hands. The steady tramp of feet on the street almost drowned out the gentle whisper of a Christmas carol playing nearby from an open shopfront, the sounds of life on this quiet night hushed by the people there to celebrate it.

They weren't there to celebrate life, or even the coming Christmas. They were there to stop a person who didn't believe in the sanctity of either. But even they, on their solemn quest, paused with their radios crackling in their ears and their FBI windbreakers barely cutting out the worst of the cold, to take in the moment.

"Merry Christmas, Dave," Morgan murmured, candlelight glinting in his eyes.

"Damn right it is," Rossi replied, turning back to the job, keeping his gun hidden from curious eyes. "Now let's make sure it stays that way."

This job didn't believe in holidays.


	19. May 19th: Essential Shorthand

**May 19** **th** **: Essential Shorthand**

 **.**

May 19th: **Shattered** \- **300** \- A world, shattered.

 **.**

He walks the scene and counts to twenty.

Numbers. Numbers are a lifeline. _One, two, three_ , with a beat between to breathe—one elephant, two, his mother used to say, and he'd always wondered why they'd counted the elephants so inefficiently. He's standing at the beginning. Here, a black mark. He bows his back and runs his fingers on rubbery tarmac where wheels bit down.

Four, five, and six is walking down the road. Here, she spun. Here, the car stopped. Seven, eight; here they'd paused and thought themselves safe. He thinks of safety. He loses count. He thinks of a safe-house. He begins again. The day is hot. A dog barks nearby.

One, two, three, and there were six in each car. Probability of being involved in a fatal car crash in Virginia: 1; 5,813. Statistics. Numbers. Not numbers. Lives.

Math is, essentially, shorthand. "48 eggs" is easier to write than "forty-eight eggs". An expression with addition and subtraction is easier to write than a paragraph expressing your bank transactions in the last year.

1; 5,813 is easier to write than agents Tara Lewis and David Rossi were both killed in a fatal vehicular accident three weeks ago. Agent Emily Prentiss remains in a critical condition.

1; 5,813 is easier to write than _I loved you and now you might never know._

1; 5,813 is easier to write than goodbye.

Twelve and thirteen is treading on broken glass, like fractured shards of broken memories. "Fourteen," he whispers, and hears Morgan calling his name, shouting _Spencer._ Fourteen, and he crouches and digs his knuckles into the glass to feel it bite and hurt.

"Emily's awake," says Morgan.

Spencer swallows.

Nineteen. Rossi is dead.

"Come on, Reid."

It's his fault. He can't atone.

He turns to face his shattered world.

Twenty.


	20. May 20th: Pretending

**May 20** **th** **: Pretending**

 **.**

May 20th: **Up** \- **100** \- Get up off the floor.

 **.**

At night, he crept from the cabin on bare feet. Shivering with more than the cold. Walking alone under the grim moon down the grassy slope to the lake; cold and endless and unfathomably deep.

"You won't break me," Derek told the lake, the quiet lapping water. He waded in. Naked and alive. He floated, watching the starry sky above. Water in his ears. He could sink. But he wouldn't. The lake wouldn't break him.

He stayed like that until Carl woke, pretending he wasn't sinking at all, but weightless in the starry sky above.

He would not be broken.


	21. May 21st: Chad

**May 21** **st** **: Chad**

 **.**

May 21st: **Watch** \- **200** \- I'll be watching you.

 **AN: Set in a shape-shifter universe!**

 **.**

Emily rolled, stretching luxuriously under the bright sun. JJ was sprawled next to her, one eye slitted open and watching the other wolves languishing around them. A sleepy summer weekend at a local shifter hangout.

Benefits: endless in-fur sunbathing without humans making asses of themselves snickering at the 'big doggies'.

Downsides: Chad.

Chad was flopped over a rock a few feet away, belly up with his tail sweeping slowly. Every time Emily or JJ glanced at him, he'd wink.

 _Is something wrong?_ A soft patter of paws and Will slipped up shyly behind them, grinning sheepishly at JJ. Emily rolled her eyes. They were still so awkward together, the white-blonde JJ and her brindle-grey partner. _You guys look bothered._

 _Romeo over there keeps staring at my tail,_ JJ grumbled, growling in the man's direction.

Emily looked at the wolf. He winked again, taking a mouthful of his dinner and attempting to eat it seductively. Fed up, she stood and strode over there.

 _Hey pretty,_ he started, but she cut him off.

 _You do realize you've got rabbit guts on your ears, right?_ Emily replied. _Also, stop staring. You haven't got a chance._

Chad's tail drooped. Emily was almost sorry.

Almost.


	22. May 22nd: Dark Games

**May 22** **nd** **: Dark Games**

 **.**

May 22nd: **Secret** \- **100** \- A secret you can't keep.

 **.**

Jack woke Hotch, his eyes shadowed in the gloom. Hotch blinked awake, concerned that the stomach-ache Jack had complained about was worsening.

"Hey, buddy," he said, "what's up?"

Jack huddled close. "I have a secret," he whispered. "Can I tell?"

Hotch's blood ran cold. His line of work, he didn't like secrets. "Of course."

If there was anything Hotch would give to have never heard his son say, 'My friend doesn't like the game his daddy plays,', he'd give it.

But he ensured that there was at least one more child in the world who would never be hurt again.


	23. May 23rd: Bad Fortunes

**May 23** **rd** **: Bad Fortunes**

 **.**

May 23rd: **Answers** \- **300** \- The answers you find weren't the ones you were looking for.

 **.**

"Just because you don't believe in it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Emily teased, delighting in the sour look on Morgan's face under his usual don't-care attitude. They both looked sorely out of place in the little tea shop, surrounded by doilies and tea leaves and dreamcatchers. The air was heavily scented with jasmine, making Emily's head thump a little. A brown and white cat watched them unblinkingly from the top of a china cabinet. Reid was poking through a bookshelf to the back, his expression intent.

"Doesn't mean I have to agree to having my fortune told by some kook just to get them to fess up," Morgan grumbled as the owner of the store moved towards them. Dressed in frills and veils, she was younger than Emily would expected.

"Here you go," she said with a wink, holding out three slips of folded paper. "Hot off the press, the answers you're looking for." After a beat, she slid another across the counter. "And the surveillance pictures. Good day."

Reid gasped behind them. She glanced at him, seeing blood beading from a papercut on his finger. The cat yowled. Morgan made a noise.

Emily blinked, turning back to Morgan who was staring down at his paper looking confused. The woman was gone.

"What'd you get?" Emily asked, uneasy. He shrugged, throwing it down and walking out without another word onto the beachside street.

She unfolded hers. _The End_ it read in bolded black. She blinked again.

"What's that?" asked Reid, taking the third piece from the counter. "Your fault?"

Emily stared at him, and then crouched for Morgan's.

 _Too Slow._

Reid and her moved as one, reaching for their guns, right as the wall of the shop blew inward.

The last thing she saw was the cat watching her.


	24. May 24th: The In-between Place

**May 24** **th** **: The In-between Place**

 **.**

May 24th: **Late** \- **100** \- The hour grows late.

 **.**

She woke in a blue-lit in-between place. A glassy lake stretched around her; so still that she couldn't tell where lake ended and sky began. The stars splashed across the black sky above, reflected underneath her feet on the rippled surface of the water.

"Uh oh," she said, looking down on the water she was standing upon. In the centre of the lake, she froze and wondered what it would be like to sink. "I'm fucking dead again, aren't I?"

"I hope not," said a quiet voice, and a touch to her hand. But she was alone. "Em, look up. Come on. Look at me."

That sounded like…

Spencer.

"Oh, you're not allowed to be dead," she told him with a hiss, ignoring the strange world around her. "Nope. Not even a little bit."

She looked up.

The night passed in a flash of knowing.

And she woke once more, this time for real, in the burning remains of the tea shop.

Alive.


	25. May 25th: It's a Head Knock Life

**May 25** **th** **: It's a Head Knock Life**

 **.**

May 25th: **Bleed** \- **200** \- I keep bleeding.

 **.**

There was a flamingo dripping plastic onto her arm. "Ow," she told the flamingo.

The flamingo, probably because it was a flamingo made of plastic and also on fire, said nothing. As she contemplated this, the flamingo suddenly leapt up and flew away.

What?

In the flamingo's place, Reid appeared. He was covered in dust. So covered in dust that she burst out laughing at the sight of his ash-grey hair and eyebrows, and the way his frown split the dust in his face on two like some geriatric version of the Joker.

"Morgan was in that explosion," said Reid, and she stopped laughing.

"Oh," she replied, letting him pull her up from the floor. The wall was gone. of the wall was in her arm. Her head ached. Sirens howled. Reid began to tug her to the door that was—bizarrely—still standing. "I'm concussed. And you've got a lump."

A lump he did have, his arm folded over his belly and bulging out under his coat. She almost gagged, suddenly picturing him trying to hold himself together.

"Morgan!" Reid yelled, still pulling her after him.

"Meow," said Reid's belly.

"Oh," said Emily again.

They walked outside into chaos.


	26. May 26th: Prentiss

**May 26** **th** **: Prentiss**

 **.**

May 26th: **Listen** \- **100** \- When it's all over, keep listening.

 **.**

Someone had wrapped a blanket around her. It was white-dotted like the night sky with threads of neon blue.

Morgan was fine, wrapped in his own—bright orange—blanket. Missing his eyebrows, but alive.

Hotch was livid that someone had attempted to explode three of his agents.

"I can't believe you rescued the cat before me," Emily grumbled, watching firefighters hose the flames. Spencer, sitting next to her with the tabby still wrapped in his coat, chuckled. "Ass."

"She's cute," he replied with a wink, tickling the cat's nose. "I think I'll call her Prentiss."

"You wouldn't dare."

He did.


	27. May 27th: Like Father, Like Daughter

**May 27** **th** **: Like Father, Like Daughter**

 **.**

May 27th: **Make-believe** \- **200** \- What do you think it ought to be?

 **.**

Anyone walking by the playground would have seen a dismal, windswept scene. Yellow-brown leaves eddied across murky puddles and the monkey bars dripped with fat droplets of rain. It was deserted, as playgrounds so often were on such cold, dreary days, except for a girl with dark, dark hair.

That passer-by would likely have stopped, pausing in whatever daily activity they were undergoing—likely already thinking wistfully of a warm drink and a soft blanket waiting at home—and noted several things about this otherwise unremarkable girl. They would have noted her oddly patched parka, which appeared to have been bought from a fancy store and then patched over inexpertly with squares of random fabric. They would have noted how, because the girl was hanging upside-down from the wet monkey bars, that long, dark hair trailed in the puddle below and left ripples in its wake. They would have noted her thoughtful expression, or perhaps her poking her tongue out at them.

They wouldn't have noted that this girl was remarkable in several ways. 1) she'd been hanging upside-down for almost an hour, which surely must have been a playground record. 2) she was contemplating that perhaps time was cyclical and doomed to repeat itself, rather than linear, much like how the perfect reflection of the monkey bars in the puddle below turned an arch into a wheel. 3) she was completely lonely.

That passer-by would probably have left by the time the rain started falling again and the girl dropped into the puddle below, wondering where the girl's parents were. They would have missed the girl's dad wandering out to find her, still dressed in the clothes he'd worn on the jet flight home from facing down with a serial arsonist and not at all surprised to find her sitting in the mud.

"Hi Dad," the girl said glumly, slapping her hand down and breaking the reflection of the monkey bars. "I missed you."

"Hi, love," said Spencer, and held his hand out to help his daughter out of the puddle. "Your mom is going to be mad with you."

See, unlike the passer-by, he saw everything noted above and more.

He rather thought she might be right about time, as much as that hurt.


	28. May 28th: Hotch's Little Helper

**May 28** **th** **: Hotch's Little Helper**

 **.**

May 28th: **Made** \- **100** \- He made it for me.

 **.**

"It's, uh… lovely," Morgan said.

"The green brings out your eyes." Emily, always the diplomat's daughter.

"I love it!" Garcia, probably the only one who meant it.

"It looks like a giant slug got gangrene and crawled around your neck to die," Dave said bluntly, right as Spencer bounced in, beaming like it was his first Christmas. Knowing his childhood...

"Be nice," hissed Hotch.

"You got the scarf I made you!" Reid said excitedly. "I made one for everyone else as well!"

"Thank you, Reid," said Hotch. "We _love them_."

"Yes we do," said Dave through a frozen grin. "Yay."


	29. May 29th: Once Upon a Time…

**May 29** **th** **: Once Upon a Time…**

 **.**

May 29th: **Time** \- **300** \- Barely enough time.

 **.**

Sean curled up into the pile of blankets on Aaron's bed, his eyes huge and locked on his brother. Aaron sat by the door, head low, leg kinked against the wall with his back to the wood. _I like this spot,_ he'd said stubbornly, when Sean had asked him what he was doing, but Sean knew he was holding the door closed.

There was a bang downstairs. They both jumped. Sean whimpered.

"It's okay," Aaron said quietly. Sean closed his eyes. "It's okay, little buddy."

But there was shouting downstairs. It wasn't okay. His brother was wrong, despite being bigger and older and smarter…

"Sean," Aaron said. Sean opened his eyes. Aaron was looking at him, right at him, and he looked real serious. Just like Sean's teacher did when he got in fights or didn't make it to the bathroom in time. "You know I'll keep you safe, right?"

"Right," said Sean. Of course he would. Aaron was _huge_. Nothing could get past him. "I know."

"You know I love you, right?"

A glass shattered.

"I'm scared," Sean admitted.

Aaron just smiled. "Dude, don't worry, we'll just sleep on the floor," he said. "They're being dumb—like those stupid cartoons you watch. No one ever gets hurt in those, do they?"

Sean thought about it. "The coyote, sometimes," he said warily. But he was always okay later?

Aaron nodded. "Well," he began, looking around. "You know what I do when I'm scared or lonely?"

"What?"

There was quiet for a moment. "I make up stories. And they always begin with…" Sean waited. "They begin with friends. And we look after each other."

Sean inched closer. "Can you tell me?" he asked eagerly. He _liked_ stories.

"Of course. We have all the time in the world. Once upon a time…"


	30. May 30th: A Hand at the End

**May 30** **th** **: A Hand at the End**

 **.**

May 30th: **Now** \- **100** \- What if it happened now?

 **.**

 _Catastrophic Impact,_ the news reports had all said. _Inevitable. Unescapable._

 **The End.**

Most people had kept on as normal. People were good at adapting to the unadaptable. Emily never ceased to be amazed by humanity.

Well. She was about to.

She laughed. "What's funny?" Reid asked quietly, his eyes on the darkening sky. D-Day. Here it was. The world around them was silent. Most people were with family. But Diana was dead, Reid was alone, and Elizabeth wouldn't care.

Emily laughed because she was about to _cease_ ; wasn't that weird?

"Nothing." They held hands as the sirens began.

The End.


	31. May 31st: Hey You, Love Dad

**May 31** **st** **: Hey You, Love Dad**

 **.**

May 31st: **Name** \- **200** \- I HEARD MY NAME!

 **.**

I'm sitting here, writing everything I'm feeling down because, today, my child is being born.

In case I forget, this will help me remember.

Today, said child who will one day read this and wonder why their dad was so weird to write this on a napkin, I'm going to say your name for the first time. Well, within earshot of you. Well… within earshot of you, not separated by your mom's belly and you know… the goopy bits. Your name is important. It's the second thing I'll ever give you, beyond actual existence (you're welcome, now don't whinge about chores), and you'll keep it your whole life, even after I'm gone.

I remember my mom calling my name. It's all I remember of her. It was a snowy day, I'd lost a mitten, and my hands were cold. And I remember her calling for me. I don't remember her face. I wonder how you'll look?

I remember the first time your mom said my name. Slightly annoyed, slightly fond. I'm less irritating than she says.

The doctors are calling my name. It's time, little buddy. Lets' get this life on the road.

See you soon.

Love, your dad, Jack.


	32. June 1st: A Silly Kind of Feeling

**Jumble June**

 **.**

 **.**

 **June 1** **st** **: A Silly Kind of Feeling**

 **.**

June 1st: **Vonnegut** \- **300** \- "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

 **.**

JJ was drunk. And not the nice kind of 'go gentle into that good night' kind of drunk. More the topsy-turvy upside-down kind of 'whoops I threw up into Aunt Patty's begonias again' kind of drunk. She was having _very_ vivid flashbacks to college and beer-pong and waking up wearing her roommate's volleyball uniform backwards.

And it was all Emily fucking Prentiss's fault.

Emily Prentiss, who was stone cold sober with her make-up still perfect and her hair all neat and her—

"Why are you glaring at me?" Emily leaned back, smiled a catty kind of grin, and pushed another drink underneath Spence's slipping elbow as it skidded on the tabletop and almost dropped him into the peanut bowl. "And you—drink up, Spence. We've got another round to go. And it's my turn to ask you: truth or dare?"

"I don't like this game," Spencer slurred, and then downed the drink. JJ sighed, leaned in to warn him maybe he was done, and kept leaning leaning leaning until she was in his lap. Oops. And warm. Huh.

Sleepily, she decided to stay there for a little minute. Voluntarily. As Spencer blinked down at her and said, "JJ's out, and truth. If I ha… mu… um, fine."

"Ever been in _luuuurve_ with a co-worker?" the schoolgirl in a federal agent's body teased from across the table. Spencer jolted.

Because JJ had her back against his chest, she felt his heart skip. Stall. Falter.

"No," he lied.

"How boring," Emily replied, listing slightly, and slid out of her seat. "Another round, I think. Stay there with JJ, good lad."

And Spencer watched her walk away, a sliver of tooth nibbling at his whisky-damp lip.

 _Oh, Spence,_ JJ thought. _You idiot._

That kind of crush was only going to end in tears.


	33. June 2nd: Acoustically Written

**June 2** **nd** **: Acoustically Written**

 **.**

June 2nd: **Message** \- **100** \- Character is in a predicament and needs to send a secret message... somehow.

 **.**

 **To: SportyJSpice .com**

 **From: bodalicious_oracle_of_all_that_is_fine .com**

Read that book

Ending was okay

I liked it

Do you have the sequel?

Didn't mind the protagonist

After he did that thing

That was a cool thing he did

Excellently yours, Penelope

 **.**

 **.**

 **To: bodalicious_oracle_of_all_that_is_fine .com**

 **From: SportyJSpice .com**

Will has the sequel.

He's happy to let you borrow it, hun.

Oh, after you've read it, there's a third. I'll bring it too : )

 **.**

 **.**

 **To: SportyJSpice .com**

 **From: bodalicious_oracle_of_all_that_is_fine .com**

Noted!

Other than that, not much to report

This is a boring email

How boring an email

Everything in this email is boring

Rhubarb

 **.**

 **.**

 **To: bodalicious_oracle_of_all_that_is_fine .com**

 **From: SportyJSpice .com**

 **Fuck.**


	34. June 3rd: Deadly Impressions

**June 3** **rd** **: Deadly Impressions**

 **.**

June 3rd: **Problems** \- **200** \- More Monet, more problems.

 **.**

It was something out of a cut-rate Monet knockoff. Rossi looked down at the lily pond, the swollen body within peering back up at him with her blue-purple skin marked where the pond's inhabitants had been nipping at her. An avid cyclist, Sarah Jay had been abducted wearing her cycling club's lycra uniform.

Sarah Jay had been found in this pond, wearing a dress that was far more 'French Impressionist'. The dress waved leisurely with the water. Shadows rippled; a bizarre patchwork of light and dark on the gruesome image

"Great," Prentiss muttered behind him. "Now I have to add 'Monet' to the list of things I'll never look at the same again. What message is this guy trying to send?"

"Monet painted a study in oils of his dead wife," Reid replied absently, studying an evidence marker with his forehead furrowed. "He described it as 'a terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features.' It's perhaps one of the most famous of death bed paintings… _oh_! Art reflecting life…"

"There's a stressor," Hotch said, turning on his heel. "Get Garcia to look for anyone trained in classical art who has lost a spouse recently. Good work, Reid."


	35. June 4th: Nathan Harris

**June 4** **th** **: Nathan Harris**

 **.**

June 4th: **Human** \- **100** \- Forget the losses, remember the victory and let each other be human.

 **.**

She scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but still her nails weren't clean, the skin too red, the cuticles still touched by Nathan's blood. Scrubbing hard until it hurt and the water from the sink was mixed with water dripping from her chin, she bowed forward and broke and wept and wondered how the fuck any of them could do this. Everything felt like his pulse fading.

"It's okay, Penelope," Reid said hoarsely. His hands were red too, but still she let him hold her. "He'll be okay."

Genius-boy like him, she had to believe he was right.

She had to.


	36. June 5th: The Autumn Scent

**June 5** **th** **: The Autumn Scent**

 **.**

June 5th: **HST** \- **300** \- "The Edge. The only people who can tell you where it is, are those who have gone over." - Hunter S. Thompson

 **.**

He found Spencer by her grave, exactly where he'd expected to find him. There was nothing surprising about this. Autumn leaves made damp sounds under his shoes as he walked carefully between headstones and faded bouquets, coming to stand by his agent's side.

Spencer said nothing, but there was a look in his eyes Hotch knew.

"The anger fades," he said quietly.

"Does it?" Spencer asked, his expression flickering. "It doesn't feel like it will. I'm either paralysed by grief… or I'm burning with a need to hurt those who took our future from us…"

That hurt. A stinging pinch that whispered _he imagined a future_ and a following punch of _they would have been happy._

"You missed the plane yesterday," Hotch said, because he didn't know where this was going. Spencer was raw and Spencer was angry and Hotch had been both but slightly less, because he'd thrown himself gleefully over the edge and softened his landing with Foyet's death.

"Yes." The answer was blank and broken.

Hotch took a breath. Grief lingered on the air along with rain. "Are you going to miss another?" Careful. They both knew what he was asking. _The woman who killed Maeve is dead. Are you going to take that anger out on the only person left alive who you blame?_

Spencer held his arm out in silence. To an onlooker, it would look as though he was trying to trail trembling fingers across the gilded name in front of him. To Hotch, it showed unmarked skin and a step back from the edge.

"It wasn't your fault," he tried.

Spencer just looked at him, his mouth turning down. "I won't miss another plane," he finally said, his shoulders slumping, and he'd said that before.

Hotch had no choice but to believe him.


	37. June 6th: But We Still Love This Show

**June 6** **th** **: But We Still Love This Show.**

 **.**

June 6th: **History** \- **100** \- Re-tell your fandom (or part of it) in a comedic Abridged History style.

 **.**

Season1: The glorious height of The Nerdiest Reid. Coke-bottles glasses 3

Season2: Reid is kidnapped. It's the whumpiest. The fandom never quite gets over it.

Season3: The most cliffhangery of season finales. We're totally fine. Also, bai Gideon, hello spaghetti grandpa.

Season4: Baby Henry, Daddy Reid, that incredibly weird truck episode… and then the season just ends.

Season5: FUCK FOYET.

Season6: FUCK DOYLE.

Season7: FUCK CBS.

Season8: They try to top season 2 with the whump. They manage it. Featuring unshaven Reid sobbing in a bathroom for 40 straight minutes.

Season9: JJ becomes a super-agent and Reid gets shot. Again.

Season10: Fuck this season. Bai Gideon for real. I hope if I'm murdered that my friends sit inches from where my mutilated body lay and eat my ice cream. #friendshipgoals.

Season11: Shirtless Morgan season

Season12: Hotch moves to the UK so Jack can go to Hogwarts. Prentiss is back and more emo than ever. Prison!Reid does prison things. The fandom is confused but soothed by his scruffy manliness.

Season13: No idea, probably overprotective unit-chief!Prentiss blowing up an entire state because someone frowns at one of her ducklings and Reid jetskiiing over a shark while Rossi seduces an entire women's bowling team.


	38. June 7th: Emily Guide to Horror

**June 7** **th** **: Emily Prentiss's Guide to Horror Stories**

 **.**

June 7th: **IDGAF** \- **300** \- A horror story where the protagonist does not give a fuck.

 **.**

Emily could make a list of 'things that were real shit about tonight' and it'd probably require footnoting and its own postal code. But she was in that grumpy edge of completely fucked off with life where she was going to inflict it on Reid even though he was suffering right there, in the dankest of basements, alongside her.

"I hate basements," she grumbled. Reid _mmm_ 'd thoughtfully from where he was trying to fiddle the basement door open. It had slammed shut on them, leaving them locked in a craphole old creaky house with no one back at the precinct expecting them back for hours. "And it's raining."

"We're inside," he said, right as his flashlight went out. "Fu—damn."

Water blooped onto Emily's forehead. "It's raining inside." More water blooped. She wiped it from her face, frowning as it came off sticky and kind of… glutinous. "It's raining slime?"

"Mould," Reid replied, right as the stairs dropped out from under him. He dropped with a howl, hitting the ground hard. Emily winced for him as he staggered up.

And moaned.

"You okay?" she asked, heart skipping a little. There was silence. "Reid?"

"That wasn't me," he whispered, inching closer to her.

 _Grooooooooooaaaaan,_ said the moaner.

"Oh fuck no," said Emily, who hated horror movies because everyone in them completely failed at punching scary things in the face if they got too close. "Fuck right off with that, thanks."

 _Arrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooonnnnnn_ , moaned the groaner. Reid shrunk back against Emily, basically trying to climb into her arms with fear. The Scooby Doo to her Shaggy.

"Emily," he whimpered, his eyes huge and bulging and locked on a white shape unfolding from the wall and oozing across the floor toward them.

 _Bloop_ went the water.

 _Brrrrrrrrrrooooooooaaaaaaannnn_ went the white floor shape thing.

Well, if she was going to die, she was at least going to prove her theory about horror movies before doing so. Anything— _anything—_ would stop being spooky if sufficiently kicked in the face.

She was absolutely right.


	39. June 8th: Medieval Yoda

**June 8** **th** **: Medieval Yoda**

 **.**

June 8th: **Esoteric** \- **100** \- Your character gets excited about something really esoteric.

 **.**

When it came to being weird, Reid usually had the corner covered. Morgan wasn't used to anyone else occupying that corner. Especially not _Prentiss_. The woman was composed with a capital Kickass.

"It's not just _any_ book, Morgan," she snarked as he peered at the yellowed pages depicting giant killer rabbits and what appeared to be a snail jousting with a knight. "It's _The Smithfield Decretals_. A collection of canonical law ordered by 13th century—"

"Is that a picture of medieval Yoda?" Morgan asked. Emily blinked.

"Yes," she muttered. "And?"

Never mind. Woman was _just_ as weird as Reid.


	40. June 9th: The Odds, Derailed

**June 9** **th** **: The Odds, Derailed**

 **.**

June 9th: **Odds** \- **200** \- When everything goes right, in spite of the odds.

 **.**

Hotch was _wired._ He may have just made the biggest mistake of his career.

 _No,_ he corrected himself, pacing down the line of the train. _My life_.

Because, if he'd sent Reid in there armed with nothing with a magic trick and a fake microchip and he didn't come back out… Hotch shuddered, a full-body shiver that worked from his head to his toes and left him cold all over, imagining Reid dead, Elle dead, innocent hostages dead…

"Aaron," said Gideon. Hotch turned sharply, too sharply. His fear was showing. "Trust the kid."

Hotch swallowed once. Swallowed twice. Composed himself.

Took a chance.

"What if I'm wrong?" he asked. "What if—"

"What if Reid is more than you think he is?" Gideon replied. "What if he's been trained by the best?"

"He's alone."

"He has Elle." Gideon paused. Hotch heard Morgan call for them. They needed to get back to their posts. "And he has his brain. And he has us."

"We're not in there with him…"

Gideon just smiled again, a cool kind of smile that was impossible to codify. "Kid remembers everything we've ever said to him. He'll beat the odds. You just watch."

And he did.


	41. June 10th: A Thousand Deaths

**June 10** **th** **: A Thousand Deaths**

 **.**

June 10th: **Gandhi** \- **100** \- "Speak only if it improves upon the silence." – Gandhi

 **.**

She was dressed in a loose sweater that hid the bandages holding together the damage that bastard had done to her. Her dark hair hung loose and damp around her tired face as she watched the plane that would take her away.

He didn't say anything. She turned and examined him. Silent. Pained. Hurt.

He leaned, intending to kiss her cheek. A soft _I'm sorry._ But she turned her head, or maybe he turned his, and their lips met. He felt her gasp a little against him.

"Catch him, Aaron," Emily whispered, and then died once more without looking back.


	42. June 11th: Creator Quandary

**June 11** **th** **: Creator Quandary**

 **.**

June 11th: **Haha** \- **200** \- The creator (writer/god/whatever) is messing with the characters today.

 **.**

Spencer Reid was a very clever man. Exceedingly intelligent, actually.

Impossibly intelligent, in fact.

He woke one day with the queerest sensation that he, in all actuality, probably shouldn't exist. The FBI in no way would allow someone of his age, with his lack of qualifications, into the field. After all, you had to have at _least_ eight years in the Bureau before entry into the BAU would even be considered…

And really, they'd all be shot/kidnapped/blown up an astounding number of times.

He spent the day in quiet contemplation, even as Rossi gently teased him for his distraction.

"What are you thinking about so intently?" the man asked.

"The possibility of our existence being falsified by some kind of higher power," Reid responded pertly.

Rossi blinked and walked away.

Later that day, he received a phone call from Bennington. His mother, somehow, had been declared completely cured. "Hmm," said Reid. "Thank you." He made cautious plans to visit her their next weekend off.

Emily strode up to him at lunch. "I'm in love with you," she announced, and dragged him by his tie into what was rather the nicest kiss he'd ever had.

"Thank you," he told her when she released him, and repaired his dishevelled tie. "I'll think about it."

Hotch found him after work. "I've had a call from the Director," he announced. "You've been awarded the Smartest Man in the Bureau Award. You've won the right to regale any of us with esoteric facts for hours on end and also an all expenses trip paid to a scientifically rich destination of your choice."

Reid thanked him also, and made an abrupt turn back into the office. He'd worked it out.

"That was a clumsy attempt to distract me from figured out your secret," he said when he found who he was looking for, folding his arms over and frowning at the man. "You could have just told me. Although, thank you for the kiss. That was nice, if a bit morally suspect."

"You shouldn't have been _able_ to figure it out," Rossi replied grumpily, setting aside his manuscript. Reid peered down at it. _Criminal Minds_ was emblazoned across the top. "I knew I was making you too fucking smart by far."

"I won't tell anyone," Reid said quickly, his ginormous brain ticking over. "But I have some ideas…" After all… a TARDIS would be _far_ more cost-effective than the jet…


	43. June 12th: En Guard!

**June 12** **th** **: En Guard!**

 **.**

June 12th: **Piece** \- **100** \- Getting the last piece of food is really important, okay?!

 **.**

Reid was abysmal at using chopsticks for their intended purpose, but fascinatingly amazing at sword-fighting with them. And Emily was entirely sensible, apparently right up until someone tried to eat the last pork dumpling.

JJ stared with open awe as the two grown-ass FBI agents battled it out with their chopsticks over the plate without missing a beat in their intense argument about the one note difference between the opening theme of Star Trek TNG and the original series. Morgan watched, open-mouthed. Hotch was steadfastly not paying attention. Garcia looked a little bit in love.

"Anyone eating that?" Rossi asked, looking up from his book and spiking the dumpling on the end of his fork before popping it into his mouth. "Ta. Mm, delicious."

And he went back to his book in the silence that followed as JJ tried very hard not to laugh.

And failed.


	44. June 13th: A Good Day Indeed

**June 13** **th** **: A Good Day Indeed**

 **.**

June 13th: **POV** \- **300** \- The heroes... run frantically by, but other than a slight disturbance in their day this minor character doesn't really notice it.

 **.**

Anderson was having a good day. The best of days, in fact. Today had been really _really_ good. They'd let him out of the office, he hadn't messed up once, no one had gotten blown up or shot or fired…

Yeah. Today was a good day.

"I love Mondays," he cheerfully told the guard as he slipped into work, almost skipping with how _good_ today was going to be. Maybe he'd finally get all his paperwork done. Maybe he'd finally ask out that pretty agent from the fifth floor!

 _Grant, things are looking up,_ he cheerfully told himself, stepping aside so that Agent Reid could hurtle past, yelling something about an orphanage. An orphanage? Anderson paused for a bit, then shrugged and kept walking up the hall. Maybe they were having another tour of kids through the Bureau. Did orphanages even exist anymore?

"Morning," he told Prentiss cheerfully, but she ignored him, talking on two phones at once while wrestling her gun into her holster with her elbows. One of the phones dropped out of her hands and he caught it, handing it back with only a glance at the screen. _Mr. President_ was written on there. He chuckled. He bet Prentiss had named Agent Hotchner that. What a gal. And then she was gone, without even a thanks.

He leaned on his desk. Ahhh, yes. Today was going to be so wonderfully quiet…


	45. June 14th: Into Fire, Into Ash

**June 14** **th** **: Into Fire, Into Ash**

 **.**

June 14th: **Dickens** \- **100** \- "I wish you to know you have been the last dream of my soul." -Charles Dickens, ATOTC

 **.**

Emily wasn't a vain woman, nor was she an overly sentimental one. But shit, who wouldn't take the chance to go and visit their own grave if it was offered? Hotch had drawn a hard nope on her watching her own funeral—she felt a little sick at the idea, honestly, and felt bad for ever joking about it—but her grave wasn't anywhere near as dangerous.

The day before she was due to start her new life, she went there. It was spring. Someone had left flowers on there. She guessed Penelope, judging by the incredible amount of colours in the bouquet.

She began to feel a little sick again, and a little bit like she was grieving. Not the empty grave below. Nudging the flowers with her boot, she leaned on the headstone that she didn't really feel up to reading now she was here, and closed her eyes.

Her boot nudged something under the flowers. She opened her eyes and looked down to find a book under there, kept safe wrapped in plastic and with a bookmark slipped inside.

When she unwrapped it and let the book fall open, she stared at the highlighted passage within.

 _"_ _And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire."_

"Damnit," she said quietly, and closed the book once more, returning it to the plastic with the sick feeling that she'd missed something important. And then she left that grave behind, this time sure.

This was grief. And it was absolute.


	46. June 15th: Boy Scouting 101

**June 15** **th** **: Boy Scouting 101**

 **.**

June 15th: **Escape** \- **200** \- Oh no, character has been captured! Fortunately, they're prepared for anything.

 **.**

They were tied with their backs together, hands cuffed between them. Reid was quiet, his head low but she knew he was watching their captors through the fringe of hair hanging over his eyes. She could feel his heart beating steadily against her back.

"Got a plan?" JJ murmured, wiggling her wrists and wincing as the cuffs clinked and bit into her skin.

"Lock-pick in my cuff," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, pressing back into her. "Pass it to me."

She blinked. That was… amazing preparation.

"Okay, but that won't get the ropes off," she replied. Their captors moved out of sight and Reid squirmed around so he was looking at her.

"The light will hit the skylights above at exactly the right angle for us to use it to fray the ropes within the next hour," he said, jerking his head back to gesture to the broken glass above. JJ followed his gaze down along the sunbeam coming through, right until it would hit the shard at just the right angle… there was a charred mark on the wall to their right.

She was impressed.

"Okay, genius, how do we then get _out_?" She fully expected an answer. The doors were locked. There was no way to climb out the skylight and no other windows. Hotch didn't know where they were. And unless Reid somehow had a plan to blow a hole in the wall using the barrels of grain stacked around them—

"Ever seen what happens when you throw a match into a grain silo?" he asked innocently, looking far, far too excited about what was going to happen next.

"You are _wasted_ in the FBI," she told him honestly.


	47. June 16th: Monkey See, Monkey Do

**June 16** **th** **: Monkey See, Monkey Do**

 **.**

June 16th: **Unmask** \- **100** \- A dramatic unmasking of the villain.

 **.**

Reid wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten roped into helping JJ with Henry's seventh birthday party sleepover, and he also wasn't entirely sure how a seventh birthday party sleepover had turned into a board game night either. Well, actually, he was pretty sure how that had happened, and it was probably because Henry's most favourite of uncles had brought him five new board games for the occasion.

"Really, Reid?" Will asked with a grin, poking his head in and staring down at the quiet gaggle of kids. "You're the only person I know who can actually make a bunch of seven-year-olds excited about _Cluedo."_

"Cluedo is lots of fun," Reid protested, although he'd voted for Risk. "Look, Henry is about to guess—"

Henry, with a practised kind of pizazz, had climbed to his feet and was holding the envelope out in front of him. "The killer," he began, to a host of wide eyes, "is a white male in his twenties, possibly driving an orange pick-up truck and he doesn't like woman very much and since he uses a knife, he's also very likely—Mom, what's the word you use on TV?"

Cluedo, it was voted, was perhaps left in the cupboard for a few more years.


	48. June 17th: Aaron

**June 17** **th** **: Aaron**

 **.**

June 17th: **Twain** \- **200** \- "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." - Mark Twain

 **.**

Aaron spent the first eight hours of his startling existence teetering on the edge of stopping before he'd even begun. When he finally gave a damp little cough and frowned at the tired doctor peering down at him, the man couldn't do anything but grin at the serious newborn.

"You better be worth all this work," he teased.

When Aaron was twenty, he was in a car with three other boys. He only knew one of them. He didn't like any of them. He pressed his face against the glass, cursing the alcohol making his head spin giddily, and wondered what the point of any of it was.

Two minutes later, he watched a sedan veer from the road and slam into a bowed oak. The car he was in hadn't even stopped before his feet hit the ground. Before now he'd never been brave or decided or optimistic. That changed that day. It was a first life he saved, the little girl he lifted from the crumpled car, but it wouldn't be the last.

He never could remember the names of the boys he was with, but he never forgot little Alice and her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

And she never forgot him.


	49. June 18th: A Carnival Date

**June 18** **th** **: A Carnival Date**

 **.**

June 18th: **Muscles** \- **100** \- Fake it 'til you make it!

 **.**

"I'm not scared," Reid said drunkenly, lilting a little to the side as he tried to lean away from the terrifying blackness in front of them.

"I am," Emily flat out admitted, narrowing her eyes at the doorway. She hated haunted houses. They _always_ flung things out at her and she _always_ reacted by punching/hitting/shooting that thing. It was costing her a fortune.

Fortunately, she was disarmed today. And drunk.

"Just pretend not to be scared until you're not scared anymore," said JJ cheerfully, ever the mom, and bounced past into the haunted house with Morgan behind her.

Reid stared, his chest rising and falling quickly.

Emily was drunk and stupid and reckless and, shit, if her hands were busy, she couldn't punch anything, so she took his hand. It was clammy and warm.

"I'm not scared," he said again as she tugged him through the doorway, his fingers wrapped around hers.

"Atta'boy," she replied.


	50. June 19th: A Stormy Cloud

**June 19** **th** **: A Stormy Cloud**

 **.**

June 19th: **Talk** \- **300** \- She knows things. Important things. Just go talk to her.

 **.**

The diner was the sticky kind of family-friendly that Morgan would have loved as a kid. Maple syrup in pitchers shaped like dinosaurs, grubby with fingerprints where the waitresses hadn't quite managed to polish them away, and plastic tablemats extolling the virtues of eating all veggies before having cake.

It wasn't empty and it wasn't quiet, but all his focus was on one frozen corner of the room.

"Hi," he said softly, and sat down. The pleather squeaked under him. Her crayon paused on the picture she was drawing. A monster with terrible arms wrapped tightly around a small, twisted shape of green and blue. Morgan swallowed.

"You're a stranger," the girl said, despite the recognition in her green-grey eyes. Her nose was a snub, her cheeks freckled under a peeling sunburn. Heavy brows lowered over those ghostly eyes. "I don't know you."

"Yes, you do," Morgan corrected her gently, turning the picture around to himself so he could examine it closer. "I work at your school. You've talked to me sometimes."

"Hmm," said she. They sat in quiet.

"You asked me to come see you," Morgan said softly. Against his chest, the wire was warm as his heart slammed underneath. "You said you wanted to talk."

She took her picture back, picking up the blue crayon and drawing a careful BY STORMY, AGE 5 AND A BIT at the top. Her handwriting was precise, her spelling perfect. Morgan winced. Kid after Reid's heart for sure.

"Are you really…" She looked around, those eyes skating across the innocuous doorway where her father worked. "…are you really a _police officer?"_

"Sort of," Morgan murmured. "Would it help if I was?"

Silence. She studied him. The crayon scratched on the paper, obscuring the twisted figure's face. "It would help me tell secrets," she whispered, and dropped the crayon. "If I could."

Morgan nodded. Outside, Hotch sat listening with a CPS officer by his side. They knew what they were going to hear. They knew what this little girl knew.

They knew who her daddy was.

"Tell me," he said, so she did.


	51. June 20th: Revelations

**June 20** **th** **: Revelations**

 **.**

June 20th: **Hugo** \- **100** \- "Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." - Victor Hugo, Les Mis

 **.**

The ropes cut his wrists. The chair is digging into his hip. Half of him is the hurting kind of numb; the other half is quietly chanting symptoms of neurological damage, the aftereffects of drug abuse, the warning signs of exposure. His head hangs low on a neck that doesn't hold him upright anymore. Fish. He can smell fish. Baking, burning. Rotting. Offal. Home is where the offal is. He tries to laugh and the sound rasps from a burning throat. He can smell piss. He tries to shift on the chair, feel some iota of existing, and knows it's him. Piss and offal and sweat and spit. He closes his eyes and wishes he was dead. He closes his eyes and wishes he was found. He closes his eyes and wishes. It's the darkest hour of the second day. He has thirty-one hours until he's found.

The drugs help.


	52. June 21st: Two Halves of a Whole Heart

**June 21** **st** **: Two Halves of a Whole Heart**

 **.**

June 21st: **Challenging** \- **200** \- Two 100 word drabbles. Any topic. Format: side by side, line by line - one completes the other, changing the message. Bonus: they _both_ can be read alone and make sense. Inspiration pic.

 **.**

I don't know how I lived without you | I'll only let you down

one day I'll make you understand this | there's nothing I can give you

but you're just so convinced of your own contemptibility | rightly so

if there's a single thing I could convince you is true, it's that | everything I am is flawed

I love you dearly | and that's why I'm doing this

please | just forget me and

believe me | when I say you're better off if you don't

come home and | remember me

don't worry, you're not the first, and | it's not hard

I refuse to say | I love you

Goodbye |


	53. June 22nd: At Least It's Not Reid For On

**June 22** **nd** **: At Least It's Not Reid For Once**

 **.**

June 21st: **Lure** \- **100** \- It started as a casual day out running errands, how did it end up like this?

 **.**

Prentiss was going to be _impossible_ about this. Absolutely fucking impossible.

"So Dave," Rossi mimed, trying to wiggle around to work his hands from the cuffs holding him, "how did that go for you? Knocked out by a girl who weighs about a buck twenty? Oh boy, oh boy, guess your age is catching up on you."

Damn woman. She would too. Straight to the age card. Or the pervert card. _Didja follow her cos she smiled pretty at you, Dave_? Or heck, the goddamn misogynist card. Yeah, she bloody would.

"Shut up, Prentiss," he muttered, giving up on the cuffs. He wasn't Reid; he wasn't magicking his way out of here. And his milk was probably going sour or spilled all over the pavement next to his car. Or… oh god. _In his car._

The door opened. Rossi's head snapped up, eyes wide.

Prentiss sauntered in, already grinning when she saw him. "Well, well," she teased gently, eyes skimming him. "For once it's not Reid being abduct—"

"Emily, tell me the truth," he gasped, hearing the rest of the team clearing the building, "did the milk spill in my car?!"

He probably deserved the look she gave him.


	54. June 23rd: Why He Ran

**June 23** **rd** **: Why He Ran**

 **.**

June 22nd: **Wilde** \- **200** \- "It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its' tainted glory, and still to love it." - Oscar Wilde

 **.**

It wasn't Scratch that made him run. Not completely. Scratch was nothing next to Foyet, nothing. And Hotch would be the first to admit… he was Aaron Hotchner: good at his job, by-the-book, dedicated to a fault, far-too-fucking-arrogant-to-quit Aaron Hotchner.

Not a single part of him believed that Scratch would beat him.

No, it wasn't Scratch who made him run.

It was Jack.

Jack sitting quietly by his side in the backseat of the sedan they'd collected him from school in, his backpack between his knees and his gaze locked on the broken zipper. Jack following him silently up the path of the safe-house they'd been assigned, sneakers dragging on the gravel, the blank-faced agents following behind.

Jack sitting at the dinner table with his food untouched in front of him, quietly asking, "What happens to me if you die like Mom did? Where will I go?" It was his voice breaking, just a tiny bit.

And it was Hotch looking at him and remembering that once, a long time ago, Jack hadn't been afraid of the dark.

"I'm leaving," he said to Dave. Dave was silent. "Don't try to talk me out of it."

After all, there was so much more than the job. Even if he'd forgotten that for a while. Life was more than fighting its darkest parts.

And Dave had simply said, "I wouldn't dream of it."


	55. Bonus: She's Not Dead

**Bonus: She's Not Dead**

 **.**

It begins on a balcony. There's a family homecoming. The focus is revenge.

 **.**

She found him on the balcony of the shittiest hotel in DC. Barely even a balcony, really, just some iron gridding nailed to a wall. His ass on the windowsill and lanky legs hanging off out into space. The air was thick, musty. Humid from the building storm and clouded by the old scents mixing in the forgotten room.

He knew she was there. She heard his intake of breath.

"Couldn't have gotten somewhere nicer?" she asked, inching forward warily. Like she didn't belong anymore. A ghost in his life, half-returned from the dead. Not quite alive yet. Not until they found Doyle. Found Declan.

 _Found Doyle,_ she repeated to herself as Spencer tilted his head around to stare accusingly at her through the yellowed lace curtains curling around his body. She could see nicotine stains and other stains she didn't want to think about, wincing and stepping forward again to pull them away from him. He hated germs. They shouldn't touch him. _Found Doyle,_ because Spencer was never cold and never furious, except right now when he was both.

"I grieved you," Spencer said coldly. And this was why he'd insisted on a hotel—this homecoming was going to be fierce and angry, and neither wanted to bring it into the homes they returned to every night. "You were _dead_."

She looked at him.

"He killed you," he continued, knuckles whitening as his fingers knotted together. Shivering with anger, his cheeks flushing red. Always pretty, even when he scared her a little.

Especially pretty when he scared her a little.

God, she was fucked up.

"I'm not dead," she said, and took his hand. It was cold. "I'm not dead." She pulled him from that deadly iron contraption and back into the musty hotel. "I'm _not dead_."

She kissed him.

She wasn't dead.

Once they'd found Doyle, she'd prove that.


	56. June 24th: STRANGE BEARS

**June 24** **th** **: STRANGE BEARS**

 _This one is set in the werewolf AU of Waking in the Lonely Dark._

 **.**

June 23rd: **Kidding** \- **100** \- Genre: kids. Trope: Curious as a monkey.

 **.**

"Hmm," said Riley. "Look, Olly."

Olly didn't want to look. Things that Riley looked looking at were _never_ good things. Not after the skunk and the porcupig and the—

Oliver looked.

 _Oh no,_ he said, and felt his tail snap between his legs. _Oh no oh no oh no. Riley, no._

"Ohhhh, yes," Riley said, sneaking forward on all fours to sniff at the _clear_ bear marks on tree in front of them. "I wonder if it's _friendly_!"

 _I don't think…_ Oliver tried, but his sister was already following the tracks doggedly, shifting into her wolfy form with her tail wagging madly. _Oh dear, Riley…_

They managed to get away from the bear, after Mom heard them shrieking, but it was a real close thing. And a new rule was added to the board in the kitchen that was titled 'Things Riley Needs to Remember': **DON'T TALK TO STRANGE BEARS.**


	57. June 25th: The End

**June 25** **th** **: The End.**

 **.**

June 24th: **Pi** \- **300** \- Genre: horror. Every time a number comes up in your fic it must be the next consecutive digit of Pi, use at least 10 digits. (3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164...)

 **.**

There came the end of their lives. It didn't happen quickly. It happened fast, and it happened without any thought for who they were. It came with riots and marshal law and bombs with matching mushroom clouds and men dressed in blue. It came with new laws. _For your own good_ , the laws said, and then they issued mandatory registration. Outside, the wars burned on. The world burned on. _For your own good, so we know that you're safe._

Some people weren't safe. Some people were the fallout.

They lost three to the fallout. First was Henry, then Michael. Too young to survive the clouded air and gasping lungs. It wasn't just them the air claimed—four million died in the initial drop, followed by one million children and infirm who couldn't cope with the deoxygenated atmosphere. Then Jack. Hotch was broken.

Next came the suicides—five that hurt them, but nine thousand just in DC were said to have chosen this way out when it became clear this hell was never-ending. This was before the recreation camps, the groups they put them in to 'inspire faith'. JJ and Will, both. Together. Diana, Reid said, but his mouth was a tight line and they knew what was happening to the sick elsewhere in the country and knew enough not to question that. Two other agents 'spoke out' and then swallowed their guns, and Hotch ordered their broken little team into silence.

Six left to be taken to the 'camps'. Hotch, Reid, Garcia, Rossi, Emily, and Jessica. There were more, of course, but they stuck together. Emily didn't know where her mom was. Rossi wasn't mentioning his family to anyone, because they were safe overseas. Or possibly safe. Safer than here.

Five months after the camps, they took Reid away. 'To help the country' they said, 'his skills were needed'. They took him in the night and he didn't have a chance to scream. Three days later, they got a letter.

 _I'm happier here. Thank you for this opportunity. We will rebuild._

It wasn't him. It was his handwriting, but it wasn't him.

Five left, they read the letter together and then looked to each other. Their lives were over, those they loved were dead. And that wasn't Reid.

"At midnight," Hotch murmured.

They'd find him or they'd die trying. Their lives were over.

But they were still together.


	58. June 26th: Something Different

**June 26** **th** **: Something Different**

 _This one is set in the daemon AU depicted in both Everything I Never Knew and Dimidium Animae Mae._

 **.**

June 26th: **Friends - 420 -** _"Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend."_ Bill Watterson

 **.**

Aureilo wasn't scared of anything, not even the things that scared Spencer. Except the dark, but that was logical because the dark was inescapable, unknowable, and _infinite_. When a dog knocked Spencer over when he was three and barked furiously into his face, Aureilo shifted into a wolf cub and barked right back. When they started school at five and were asked to introduce themselves to the class, Aureilo was a fawn with gangly legs that stood in front of Spencer and proudly told everyone they were, "Smarter than you!" Smarter or not, Spencer wished his daemon would be _quiet_.

Spencer was scared of everything. Being in front of people made him feel dizzy and sick to his stomach, helpless to do anything but close his eyes and his ears and let his daemon speak for him. Girls made him wary of betrayal; boys had rough hands and reckless minds. Other daemons didn't like Aureilo, and that scared Spencer too, because if they hated the most fundamental part of him, then what hope did Spencer have of making…

"Friends are overrated," Aureilo told him one night, as they curled up in their room and considered loneliness. "You don't need them. You have _me_."

"It's not the same," Spencer mumbled into Aureilo's fur. Today, Aureilo was a hare. Bony and awkward but his fur was soft and warm. He liked being a hare. Spencer was scared of it. It felt like settling. "You _are_ me."

"Not really," Aureilo said, and here was something else Spencer was scared of. "We're not much like each other at all…"

And they weren't, really.

They made a friend, one day, when they were far far older but not really any more comfortable in their own skins. Well, Spencer did. Aureilo didn't like them, but Ethan and Cartesian were used to not being liked. In every way that Spencer and Aureilo were different, Ethan and his rat daemon complimented each other.

"She's me, of course she's wonderful," Ethan teased when Spencer commented on it, and then showed Spencer how he and Cartesian would play keyboard together with her scurrying between his fingers flawlessly on the keys. "You and Aureilo are more alike than you think."

"Hardly," scoffed Aureilo, turning his back on the rat as she winked at him and flicking his tail with disdain.

"Not really," said Spencer sadly. "We're… different. Wrong…"

"There's nothing wrong with you," Ethan said.

"Nothing at all," whispered Cartesian.

For the first time, Spencer wondered if they might be right.


	59. June 27th: Wavering Blue

**June 27** **th** **: Wavering Blue**

 **.**

June 27th: **Underwater - 112 -** _glub glub glub_

 **.**

JJ almost drowned once.

She was four. The cousins she was swimming with in a backyard pool with a broken gate were distracted with a pack of new cards in shiny foil packets. She wouldn't see these cousins again until years later at a muted funeral, and each of them would remember this moment. She'd wandered away, toppled in.

Drowning only takes twenty to thirty seconds before submersion occurs. Spencer would tell her this later. She hadn't learned yet to count that high.

She slipped under. Blinked. The world was wavering blue and silent.

A hand grabbed her arm and tugged her from that endless falling. Both coughing, Rosaline yelling, JJ lived.


	60. June 28th: Erised

**June 28** **th** **: Erised**

 **.**

June 28th: **Mirror - 388 -** It's definitely a mirror, but it's not reflecting what you might expect…

 **.**

Penelope Garcia loved Harry Potter. She loved the world, she loved the prose, she loved the eternal optimism showed by the characters. Most of all, she adored the friendships depicted within the yellowed pages of the paperbacks she owned, the ones with cracked-glue spines and dog-eared corners and the childish _PENNY G._ scrawled on the title page overtop of J. K. Rowling.

If there was one thing that captured her attention, especially after her parents' deaths and everything that followed, it was the Mirror of Erised. Desire, backwards. Garcia knew what she'd see if she was to look into it, and she knew she'd never, ever admit that to anyone. Incidentally, Harry was her favourite character.

She knew what Hotch would see too, she thought, and that broke her heart. Haley alive, Haley with Jack. She doubted Hotch would see himself. He'd always seen himself as heartbreakingly separate from everyone around him who loved him.

JJ? Maybe her family, grown and happy. Maybe her sister, older than she'd been. Maybe a family with three children instead of two. Maybe the team, growing old together, with their families surrounding them. Whatever she'd see, it would be everyone happy.

Spencer she couldn't even begin to imagine. Rooms full of books, perhaps, or all the knowledge in the world. But, deep down, she knew. He'd see a library, and him and Maeve dancing together.

So many of their desires flavoured by death and loneliness. It was one small consolation that she thought, after meeting Savannah and Hank, that maybe Derek would look into that mirror and see… exactly what he had. Yeah, that was a comfort. She clung to that.

She was drunk when she asked Emily what she'd see in her reflection. No clarification was needed—Emily knew the books, knew the movie, and had a secret box hidden in her dresser drawer with a wand Spencer had given her for Christmas one year based on McGonagall's. Emily was quiet as she thought about it. Finally, she answered, softly: "Home."

Garcia didn't know what to make of that.

Rossi overheard. "The world's smoothest scotch," he replied. Garcia laughed and didn't doubt it.

Only later did she realize that Rossi's quick answer meant that he knew Harry Potter.

Maybe she didn't know her team as well as she thought she did.


	61. June 29th: It's…

**June 29** **th** **: It's…**

 **Okay, this one was totally a request and I am SO SORRY.**

 **.**

June 29th: **Footsteps - 206** **-** They're getting closer and closer and closer…

 **.**

He'd lost Morgan. Somewhere in the darkened corridors of the abandoned high school they were painstakingly searching, Reid had lost Morgan.

But he wasn't alone.

It started as a creaking sound. The whispering creak of rusty wheels. But, whenever Reid turned to look behind him with his flashlight in hand, the corridor was empty.

A shadow followed. It caught in the corner of his eye. Long fingers reaching for him and darting away. His phone was dead. His voice croaked. _Morgan,_ he whispered, but there was no answer. On the cracked floor below his shoes, _tap tap tap_ went his footsteps, quickening as his heart began to beat faster and he began to… run.

He caught a glimpse of a green shape looming. Darting away from that, he hurtled into a room and slammed the door shut behind him, his breath catching in his throat. From behind him, someone chuckled.

He froze.

And turned slowly. The room was empty except for a peeling wall, painted with a picture. A picture of a frog. The frog's eyes were bulbous. It rode a unicycle. Above its head, there were words. _Oh shit waddup,_ Reid read disbelievingly.

From behind him a ghostly voice whispered, _It's dat boi…_

He screamed.


	62. June 30th: Charlie

**June 30** **th** **: Charlie**

 _This one is set in the daemon AU depicted in Everything I Never Knew._

 **.**

June 30th: **O'Keefe** **\- 400 -** _"I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say any other way – things I had no words for."_ Georgia O'Keefe

 **.**

Charlie Reid had never wanted to stop talking. It was never her intention—she never in her worst nightmares had ever thought there would be a day when she would open her mouth and fail to communicate. When it became _her_ fault that Pa's face had turned old and drawn and her fault that Daddy was drinking more to 'cope'. Jack was mad at her all the time, and it didn't matter how many strange faces she made at herself in the mirror as she tried to force the words: they wouldn't come.

It was as though a wall had sprung between her and the rest of the world. She curled up alone with Tait huddled close to her chest and grieved her lost voice. Into herself, she withdrew, away from the guilt and the shame and the ever-present worry that she was losing what made her _her_.

One day, she opened her desk at school and found something within that she hadn't put there. It was a book with spiral binding and blank pages made of a thick, soft paper. As she lifted it with shaking hands, it revealed a packet of untouched graphite pencils beneath. The room was emptying fast as her classmates left her standing there; they laughed and she was silent, invisible to them as always.

And then they were gone and she still held the book.

"Charlie," said her English teacher from the front of the room. Charlie looked at him, trying to hide her trembling. "There's more than one way to speak to those you love."

She went home and sat in silence as Jack avidly talked about his day. She didn't say goodnight to her parents when she went to bed, and they didn't expect her too. She kissed them both and smiled at Jack. Tait followed her, his ears perked up and a purr humming in his feline throat.

They drew. It wasn't good and it wasn't easy and it took them until the dawn was painting the sky with pale blue fingers.

When Pa came to get her for breakfast, she held out the book with the smudgy graphite drawing of a girl sitting alone with her world shattering around her.

 _I miss you_ she'd written underneath.

"Oh, Charlie," Pa said softly, holding her close. She discovered that, even though she'd lost her voice, she could still cry. Her heart still beat. She was still _her_. "I'm always here, love. Always."

 _Promise me,_ Charlie wanted to beg him, but she couldn't find the words.


	63. Bonus: Running Away

**Bonus: Running Away**

 **.**

Bonus: **Lost - 278 -** How did we end up here? And how do we get back home?

 **.**

When Aaron was ten, his family replaced him with a screaming, red-faced baby and then sent him away. He never really forgave Sean for this.

Aaron's new school was full—full of eyes and ears and nosy boys with lying smiles and sharp mouths. Aaron hated it all. He hated the food, which tasted fine but not as good as home; he hated the beds that caught every restless movement he made in the night and broadcasted it to the dorm full of listeners; he hated the teachers who cared more than the ones at home had; and he hated feeling lost in his own life. Most of all, he hated the summer holidays.

One day, when Aaron was ten, he ran away. And he was followed.

"Where are you going?" asked the boy, one who watched Aaron the most and said the least. Around them, the fields of the school had changed to forests he didn't know. Aaron was a little impressed he'd been followed so long. "I think we're lost."

"Good," Aaron said savagely. "That's the point." And he turned, angry, with a stick in his hand and desperate to make some kind of connection.

The boy tilted his head. "Getting lost is well enough," he said finally, "but how will we get back home after?"

Aaron blinked. That hadn't been a consideration.

"They're having lamb for dinner," finished the boy. "If we make it home in time for that, I'll let you have my dessert."

Huh.

"Okay," Aaron said, and turned back.

He found, after that, that getting himself lost wasn't anywhere near as fun as having a friend.

He still hated summer holidays though.


End file.
